In the US, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion defines SDoH in 5 areas. The WHO lists 10. There are reasons for different agencies to have varying definitions and perimeters for aspects of the human experience that seem universal. For one thing, universal experiences aren’t necessarily experienced to the same degree universally, so different agencies that serve different populations will put varying degrees of emphasis or priority on the mitigation or enhancement (in the case of positive experiences) of these aspects of life. 

For another thing, culturally, there may be a higher or lower priority on certain needs. 

And finally, socio-politically there may be pressure on agencies to deemphasize certain social deficits to take pressure off financial and political structures to prioritize solutions over others which have already been held as priorities in the past. 

The World Health Organization lists the Social Determinants of Health as follows:

• Income and social protection
• Education
• Unemployment and job insecurity
• Working life conditions
• Food insecurity
• Housing, basic amenities and the environment
• Early childhood development
• Social inclusion and non-discrimination
• Structural conflict
• Access to affordable health services of decent quality.

The basic point being that while it may seem like common sense, it has now been recognized and adopted into not only political structure but the healthcare paradigm as an ethical imperative that these determinants are essential to the wellbeing of the individual and thereby the community and by extension society as a whole. It is therefore paramount that all healthcare providers and organizations at large focus on these determinants and address them with the same vigor as they would any physical or psychiatric symptomology. 

At Peer Solutions, we’re wondering why governmental structures are so late to the party. If you talk to healthcare workers, behavioral health providers, or outreach workers, they’ll tell you they’ve known this from day one. 

That’s okay. Welcome to the party. As long as you let us keep doing what we need to do to keep people thriving beyond surviving, we’ll be fine.